Three days before Midsummer 1145
A baking hot day, one that had mellowed into an evening still too warm and airless for comfort, was drifting into an uncomfortable, sticky night. June had been a month of blazing sun that had seen the Avon’s level drop, revealing her banks like a wanton flaunting her ankles, and flow lazily, as though it also found the heat exhausting. Only the visiting swallows and house martins seemed to be as energetic as always, busily raising their broods beneath the thatched eaves of the houses. Now, as the soft dark of a short, summer night descended, their screams and
